Braham teacher surprised with $1,000 worth of school supplies

Published October 17, 2012 at 1:28 pm

A Braham Area Elementary School second grade teacher recently had a surprise visit.

Representatives from OfficeMax earlier this month stopped by Lori Auers’s classroom to surprise her with $1,000 worth of school supplies as part of their program called A Day Made Better. Braham School Board members congratulated Auers during the board meeting Oct. 15. Lori Auers

“I was very surprised,” Auers said. “It was wonderful. The kids got really excited about all the things they could use.”

The donated supplied included folders, notebooks, crayons, markers, a new desk chair for Auers and much more. After the surprise visit, Auers said she and her students wrote thank-you letters to OfficeMax.

“It was unexpected,” she said. “It was really generous of them.”

This marks the sixth year of the program, in which OfficeMax associates surprise 1,000 teachers in their classrooms with $1,000 each worth of school supplies—$1 million in sum.

OfficeMax consumers and business clients contributed nearly $900,000 in additional school supplies through this summer’s in-store supply drive held at OfficeMax locations nationwide. The supplies were donated Oct. 2 to the A Day Made Better schools where the teachers were honored.

“We want teachers and students nationwide to have the resources they need for success in the classroom,” vice president, chief diversity officer and president of the OfficeMax Charitable Foundation Carolynn Brooks stated in a press release. “OfficeMax shoppers and business clients have joined the cause because they recognize that their contributions have a positive effect on the community, and ultimately contribute to an educated workforce.”

New this year, throughout October OfficeMax will also accept monetary donations at the checkout counters of all its retail locations for AdoptAClassroom.org. These donations will be put into a spending account on AdoptAClassroom.org, where schools that participate in A Day Made Better can use the donations to order additional supplies and equipment for their classrooms.

Teachers spend approximately $1,000 out of their own pockets each year to offset school budget shortfalls and ensure that their students have the necessary classroom resources for learning. The OfficeMax A Day Made Better program, in partnership with AdoptAClassroom.org, aims to help end the need for teacher-funded classrooms.

Since 2007, A Day Made Better and other OfficeMax Goodworks programs have contributed more than $18 million in grants and supplies to support more than 29,000 teachers and their classrooms. Additionally, through the annual event, OfficeMax has helped its nonprofit partner AdoptAClassroom.org secure funding for more than 78,000 classrooms nationwide.

In other action, the board:

• Approved the hiring of half-time kindergarten teacher JeanAnn Mattson, who was substituting in this position from the start of the school year, but officially started Sept. 24. She was hired in order to keep classroom sizes lower. “We interviewed some very qualified staff members for this position. We are extremely lucky to have so many talented individuals teaching in our schools,” Elementary School Principal Jeff Eklund said.